Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty is directed by Catherine Bigelow, the same woman who brought you The Hurt Locker.This two and a half hour film is nominated for best picture, film editing, sound editing, and original screen play. Actress Jessica Chastain who plays Maya, the films main character, is nominated for lead actress. There were two things that really bothered me about this movie, the first being the title. As anyone who grew up in or around the military knows, the saying is Oh dark thirty not zero. The second is that the film is broken up into labeled sections where at some point in that section a character will say the label that appeared on the screen minutes before. In my opinion, the movie would have been just as good if each segment wasn’t labeled and they just let it flow continuously. Other than those two reasons, Zero Dark Thirty is a pretty good movie. The beginning can be a little slow and there is way more talking than action but the last thirty minutes or so are intense. Chastain’s performance definitely earned her the Oscar nomination but throughout the movie I kept remembering her role in The Debt where she played another intelligence officer. For those of you who saw Act of Valor (available on Netflix instant watch) one of the main Navy Seal’s is the leader of Seal Team Six, which isn’t very surprising. Zero Dark Thirty is a great movie but I doubt it will win the best picture award against Django.

Zero Dark Thirty was recently released in theaters so you have plenty of time to go see it.